


so tired of having to live without you

by cinderlily



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 19:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10725795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderlily/pseuds/cinderlily
Summary: If anyone asked, it was a totally stupid idea and if it blew up in his face he completely blamed Jakob. But if it worked, it was all his idea.AKA, Max has an important question to ask Duke and gets by with a little help from his friends.





	so tired of having to live without you

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been kind of bummed out as of late, and I've *tried* writing fluff but it has always turned to angst. This, however, did not. Instead it walked directly into my head mostly fully formed and said, "Hey, write me." 
> 
> I obliged. 
> 
> Thank you LuciFern for the beta, but any left over mistakes are still mine. <#

Halfway through meticulously setting out pucks on the ice, hands mostly frozen and teeth chattering Max looked at Jakob and frowned. “This is the stupidest thing I have ever done and I hate you.” 

“Dude, this is EPIC, man, EPIC ROMANCE.” 

“You’re a FRESHMAN,” Max pointed out. “How do you even know what epic romance is?” 

Jakob tilted his head and gave a cocky smile. “Well, I have a boyfriend and you don’t. Plus, like I thought you were going to stop with the grade thing now that I helped you with this.” 

“I was desperate. I was freaking out. And now Duke is going to laugh at me and I am going to be the laughing stock of the whole school and … like. You’re to blame. Entirely.” 

“Whatever,” he shrugged. “If you really thought Duke would freak you wouldn’t even have started this. Plus, how can you embarrass yourself in front of the whole school when it’s just the varsity guys? They’re cool. Shane would totally freak if any of them made fun of you.” 

Max moved the last puck into place and stood back to look at his work. He was pretty sure it looked right, but to be fair he was at ice level and it had weird perspective. They had measured it out though. 

“YO, LAWS!” Jakob called out and it carried well enough with the echoing silence of the room. Lawson looked up from his phone, he was about 10 rows back and was supposed to be their lookout and their critic and was seriously failing at one of his jobs already. 

Lawson stood up and seemingly took a picture with his phone, a fact that was confirmed when the phone in Max’s pocket pinged. He picked it up and saw that everything looked okay. Which, one would think, might give him a little bit of ease, but instead it made his heart go from his chest to his throat in one swift move. 

“You okay?” Jakob said and skated over. He looked over his shoulder and he could _feel_ the grin on Jakob’s face. “Aw, _money_ dude. This is awesome.” 

“Say that in about an hour,” Max muttered. 

Jakob smacked his back. “Yeah, I will. You won’t hear it though because you and Duke will be too busy ‘celebrating’ his yes.” 

“I hate you,” he repeated for good measure. “All your fault.” 

“Naw, Max,” Jakob said. “You love your future teammate.” 

“I was assigned you,” Max pointed out, but he knew Jakob wouldn’t take it personally. Jakob was the little brother that Max had always wanted, and he knew full well it. 

He _was_ technically assigned him as a Junior Varsity mentor but he chose to be a mentor. It was weird that he had ended up mentoring him about as much, just about off ice shit. He tried not to think about the fact that he was taking romantic advice from a 14 year old, but it was true. The kid had a boyfriend and that was light years ahead of where Max was. 

“Uh GUYS,” Lawson called out. They both jerked their heads up. “MURPHS TEXTED. GAME ON.” 

Max’s heart, still lodged in his throat, started to beat rapidly. He thought for a brief moment of scrapping the whole idea and knocking all the pucks into one of the empty nets. Jakob shook his head at him like he was reading his thoughts.

“No to whatever you’re thinking,” Jakob smiled. “Let’s go get your man.” 

He might actually puke on the ice. Would it bounce? He swallowed a few times and then skated off the ice, carefully avoiding the pucks and jumping into the bench area. He had about five minutes on the outside to get out of his skates and into his shoes, while also looking like he hadn’t been on the ice for the better part of an hour. 

He totally could do this. 

* 

He totally could not do this. 

He got into the locker room and was glad to find he was the only one there, but then the guys filed in. Duke was in the middle of a conversation with Murphy that seemed to have something to do with explosions as there were lots of hand movements that he’d only seen Duke use to explain his favorite movies. Max’s hands were sweaty and if he hadn’t just taken his numbers he’d swear he’d dipped, but no the nausea and the shakes were nerves not blood sugar. 

Shane looked at him with a huge smile and a wink and like seriously, the guy was a senior but acted like he was the team dad. It was totally weird. Just because he and his girl had been together since basically preschool he didn’t get to act like that. The weirdo. 

Murphy had subtly brought Duke towards him and stopped in front of Max’s locker, even though it was about six stalls from both Duke and Murphy’s. There was a weird pause in the conversation as Murphy looked down at Max and smiled broadly. 

“Oh, dude, _Max_ ,” he said, like he hadn’t lead Duke there. “Duke was just telling me about Fast and the Furious 7. Have you seen it?” 

Duke tilted his head. “We went together. It was awesome, right Max?” 

Max nodded, not trusting his voice quite yet. 

“See, Max agrees,” Duke said. “Murphy says the series went south after 2. Which is stupid, two was the worst.” 

Murphy shrugged. “I have to go talk to Shane about… stuff. You sit here.” 

Duke looked over and frowned. “I’m not a puppy.” 

“Stayyyy,” Murphs teased, and Duke flicked him off but sat down next to Max either way. 

Under his breath Duke muttered, “We’ve got to think of a good prank for him.” 

“Maybe we get his ID changed to freshman?” Max tried, and though his voice croaked it wasn’t as bad as he thought. 

Duke laughed. “I like how you think, Domi. Evil but subtle.” 

Max brushed his hands, sweaty but still somehow ice cold, against his jeans. “Thanks.” 

“Did you do extra practice? You look flushed,” Duke said, his mouth turning downwards. “You okay?” 

Max could have laughed but that would probably seem a little crazy. Rather he just shrugged. “Went out to check the ice. Last time it was slushy. Thought if I could I would ask for a Zamboni.” 

“And?” Duke asked. “Everything look good?” 

Max went to answer but Shane interrupted, thank everything holy. 

“Okay guys, we have some stuff to go over,” he said and took a moment to scan the room. “We’re playing to get to the finals this year, these next few games are extremely important.” 

Duke looked at him and rolled his eyes. Every game was _extremely important_ to Shane. Max fidgeted with the bottom of the bench. He felt like he was going to crawl out of his skin. 

“Hey, Duke, saw that,” Shane said. “And just for that, you get to go set up the pucks. Your friend Max can help out.” 

Duke got up to walk over to his stall and grab his skates, starting to slip off his pants but Shane tutted. 

“Just your skates, buddy,” he said. “You can come back to us for your gear in a bit.” 

Duke stalled out. That was not how things went in the least, the person who had to set up the gear had to be geared up but when he looked back at Max, Max shrugged and pulled his skates on. He grabbed a sweatshirt this time, as he wasn’t going to be totally dumb twice and last time he was freaking cold. Duke was smart enough to grab one in the first place. 

He was trying his best to not be outwardly freaking out but that didn’t seem to matter as Duke was barely looking at him. The rest of the guys? They seemed to be taking turns looking at both the guys and smiling. Max was sure his whole body was blushing and he really hated all his teammates. Especially Murphy, who, when Max passed following Duke gave him a way over exaggerated wink and _smacked his ass hard_. 

They got into the hallway and Duke turned to him with a half frown. 

“What was with Shane?” 

Max shrugged again. He was a little… tense. His stomach was full of what he thought were butterfly with steel wings and he was not entirely sure he’d made the best decision. He should have just made this a small thing. Like, really small. Least embarrassment possible. Also, he was afraid that Duke might think this was girly or … something. 

But it was too late, the ball was rolling and people were expecting things. 

They were getting close to the entrance to the rink and Max slipped his hand into his pocket. 

“Okay, um. Duke?” 

Duke turned around, a little wobbly on his skates. “What’s up?” 

“Uh, do you trust me?” 

An eyebrow arched and he frowned. “Depending.” 

“Nothing bad, I promise,” Max said. “You know our deal, no practical jokes.” 

It wasn’t a deal as much as a cease fire. Things had gotten pretty bad a few months into them being in Junior Varsity and after an incident that involved saran wrap, whipped cream and permanent markers they’d been sent to the office. Third day into their joint punishment they’d decided that they would join their efforts rather than split them in half. 

“What’s that?” 

Max blushed. “Part of the trust thing.” 

He held up a sleep mask he’d bought a few days beforehand. He didn’t _mean_ to hold it up like hand cuffs but as soon as he realized what he’d done he moved it to be on his palm to seem a little less… lewd. 

Duke bit at his lower lip, which was pretty freaking unfair in terms of keeping his concentration on anything other than that lip and the things he wanted to do things to with that lip but Max shook it off. 

“On the ice?” Duke asked, slowly. 

“Like you need to see to not fall,” Max said. “You could skate backwards blindfolded and still score.” 

Duke’s chest puffed out. “True.” 

“So…” Max said and offered it out to Duke. 

Duke took the mask and slipped it on over his face, Max waved his hand in front of his face and then pretended to punch him to make sure that he wasn’t faking it. He didn’t flinch. Okay. He inhaled. 

He took Duke’s hand and walked him, slowly, to the door. “Doorway, big step.” 

Duke followed him. “I swear, if you break our treaty, I’m shaving that pitiful beard off your face in your sleep.” 

“You’d have to be at my house to do that,” Max said, the butterflies returning with a vengeance. 

He shrugged. “Your mom likes me, she says I’m polite, unlike some of her children.” 

“She hasn’t heard you on the ice,” Max laughed. They were nearing the booth, and thus the ice. His heart beat went faster, somehow. 

As they walked out on the ice Max took a long breath in. He’d practiced this about a thousand times in the last week. He’d said it in the mirror, in the shower. To Jakob and Lawson, who had fake gagged but then told him not to change a freaking word. He even showed his mom, embarrassingly enough. Even worse, she teared up… cause she was his mom. 

“You okay, Domi?” 

“You remember when we met?” 

Duke tilted his head. “Uh, yeah, man. I’m not old. It was like a year and a half ago.” 

“I kind of hated you,” he said and Duke’s mouth turned downwards. Before he could get a response he moved on. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I liked you. I liked you a lot. But I hated you. Cause you were like, cool. You were easy. You smiled and laughed and made friends and _so fucking good on the ice_.” 

He took the chance to take his hand, using the excuse of leading him around on the ice. He moved around the outer edge, avoiding the pucks. 

“Plus, like, you moved from Quebec and came here and just fit in,” Max said. “I was struggling and I’d been here forever. So it was more… I was jealous of you than hate. But still. I spent months annoyed by how awesome you were.

“Then we got put in detention together, which was completely your fault… but you talked to me and acted like it wasn’t that big of deal. You apologized for getting us benched. You freaking sketched out plays we could try together. And it was like, I was… well. I was fucked. We got off detention and I was freaking gone, Duke.” 

Duke opened his mouth and then shut it. He was going with the flow though, wasn’t pulling away, so he took it as a sign to go around. 

“And I thought, maybe, it would go away. I knew that … feelings… in the locker room would be complicated and I didn’t want to mess up the flow of the team. But time moved and the last thing that happened was anything going backwards. If anything they went forward. Constantly forward. Then you dated that dinkus Lex, who didn’t even like hockey and I was … heartbroken. 

“When you broke up I told myself that I wasn’t going to let my chance go by. I wasn’t going to lose it again. But I’ve been chicken. I’ve been such a freaking chicken. But I’m… I’m more scared of losing the chance than embarrassing myself.” 

He slowed the skates down to a crawl. They were almost at the perfect spot. He situated him right at center ice. 

“Stay here.” 

Duke didn’t say anything but stood still. 

He skated over to the small pile of things on the edge of the rink nearby. 

“Okay, take off your mask.” 

Duke hesitated but did so, his eyes still closed beneath for a second before he opened his eyes and let out a soft, “ _Merde_.” 

“Anthony Duclair,” Max said. “Do you want to go to Prom with me?” 

He gestured to wear the pucks were lined up to spell PROM?, handed him the brand new and _freaking expensive_ set of three sticks in his hand and the box of cupcakes that he knew Duke would eat for breakfast lunch and dinner. 

Duke blinked, and then blinked again and the heart that was in Max’s chest seemed to sink slowly towards his stomach. He wouldn’t say no, he _couldn’t_ say no… he could though. He could. 

“I mean, if you don’t want to… it’s not… I mean…” Max backpedaled rapidly. 

“Shut up,” Duke said and threw himself at Max to grab him in a hug. “Yes, fucker. Totally fucking yes.” 

They slipped, their skates getting tangled and Max fell straight on his ass and wow. Padding helped a lot cause, _ow_. But he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. “Careful, cupcakes.” 

“Cupcakes? These sticks? You got me **sticks**?” 

Max felt himself flush a little, even though he was no doubt red from the cold. “Well, you don’t seem like the flowers type.” 

Carefully, Duke put both the sticks and the pink box off to the side. He then leaned over and Max closed his eyes, feeling Duke’s warm lips press against his cheek and then his own lips. 

Then he heard the hooting coming from somewhere off ice. Both he and Duke sat up to find the _entire_ Varsity team and at least half of the Junior Varsity in the stands. One of which, Jakob he was pretty sure, holding a sign saying ‘DUCLOMI 4EVA’. 

“Oh god,” Max put a hand up to his eyes. 

Duke shrugged, put up one fist in victory and went back to kissing him. The pucks surrounding them were scattered everywhere, Max’s ass was frozen, but it took Shane coming down to the ice a minute or two later to get him to move. Citing the fact that they could take the freaking practice off if they would just _get a room_. 

Which they did. At Max’s house. And even though he had to keep his door open as his mom had _rules_ he still called the day a complete success.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Jason Mraz "Sleeping to Dream"


End file.
